An online user may provide an endorsement. For example, a user may provide a recommendation, rating, review, content or other online content indicative of a positive or negative endorsement. Such endorsements by an online user may provide great value for a target (e.g., URL) that is being endorsed.
However, online endorsements may be abused. For example, unauthorized endorsements may be offered for sale by an unauthorized party, and may be purchased by a potential target of an endorsement. Such a purchase and display of online endorsements may result in a distorted recommendation profile for the potential target with respect to other similarly situated targets (e.g., URLs of competitors).
The mechanism by which such online endorsement abuse may occur includes the sale of recommendations, or the exchange of recommendations. However, these mechanisms as performed by the unauthorized party may be difficult to identify and stop. Additionally, signal analysis may be difficult, due to possible masking or forgery of signals by the unauthorized party, as well as latency issues, due to the possible transient nature of the unauthorized party.